Ascension
by NinaRoja
Summary: A look at what happened before, during and after the stampede, all from Mufasa's perspective. One-shot. My entry for the My Lion King 23rd Writing contest (I won :D )


**Hello all, welcome to another one shot **

**This was my entry for the 23****rd**** My Lion King dot com writing contest on the forums I frequent. If you're a TLK fan I highly recommend going and making an account. It's awesome :D**

**What's even more awesome, I won the contest! As is tradition, I always post my entry to this site, so here we go!**

**Ascension**

The first sign of anything out of the ordinary that day had been the large cloud of dust rising from the distant gorge. The vast valley, which had once been home to a spectacular river, had dried up many moons ago, remaining empty of virtually any sign of life for as long as anyone could remember. Yet, now, here it was, all at once spewing dust and sand into the air like a suddenly active volcano that had lain dormant for years.

The king Mufasa and his major-domo Zazu hadn't been too far away when it all started. A tremendous rumbling could be heard in the distance, but the two of them didn't pay it much attention. Large herds of animals often travelled as one like that when migrating or just moving from one place to another. Either that or someone was on the hunt, scattering the prey animals as they burst from their hiding place, springing up out of the long grass that covered most of the savannah. In any case, the sound wasn't a rare occurrence.

"We can go back to Pride Rock now, Zazu," Mufasa said, dipping his head to drink from a nearby pool, "I think we've been everywhere now."

"Very well, your majesty," Zazu replied, hopping from the ground onto a nearby rock, "I think you're right."

As the lion quenched his thirst, having been under the intense heat of the African sun for several hours now, the bird looked tentatively up at him, the first words of a potentially awkward conversation forming on his beaked lips.

"You know, Sire," he began, slowly, "I must say… how dreadfully sorry I am. For what happened at the graveyard…"

He flinched slightly as Mufasa raised his head, preparing himself for the berating he had not yet received. All the King had given him in the direct aftermath of the incident was a withering, silent glare, enough to make the bird cringe on the spot. He braced himself, certain that the worst was about to hit him.

"That wasn't your fault, Zazu."

Zazu opened his eyes, having shut them, surprised.

"I… I… what?"

"Well, you hardly led them to that graveyard, did you? If anything I should be thanking you! Without you I would never have got there in time. Those hyenas would have-"

He stopped, not wanting to think about any what-ifs. In that situation they were so numerous, and just thinking about them made the lion's stomach turn over.

"Well, you know what would have happened."

The bird nodded, knowingly. Mufasa continued,

"Simba is very young, with a lot to learn, but someday he will. For now it's up to me to make sure he does that."

He turned around to face his major-domo.

"In short, thank you, Zazu. You make this job a whole lot easier for me."

He let a smile cross his lips, as Zazu reflected it, his relief clearly evident across his face.

Suddenly distracted, the hornbill gazed into the distance, and for the first time he spotted the commotion rising up from the gorge. He squinted at it, confused.

"Sire, do you see that?"

Mufasa looked up from the water that his gaze had fallen to. He followed Zazu's line of sight until he too could see the swelling cloud above the canyon.

"What on Earth-?"

He didn't finish, far too dumb-founded as to why this usually abandoned spot in the Pride Lands was all at once so alive.

"Why do you suppose that is?" Zazu asked, settling onto the king's shoulder for a better view, "it's usually so quiet down there. "

"I don't know," Mufasa replied, slowly, turning his thoughts over in his head as to why this could be. This was not a normal occurrence at all.

"We'd better go over and see," he concluded, standing up and making to step forward. However, before he could, he was stopped again. His brother, Scar, had appeared in front of him, almost in the blink of an eye.

"Scar," the king said, partially from the shock of seeing him so suddenly, "what are you doing here?"

The darker lion was almost out of breath, breathing heavily, as if he had been running to find them.

"You have to come with me, now," he wheezed, not disguising the urgency in his voice, "there's a stampede in the gorge."

"We saw that," Mufasa said, "but what can we do? If the herd is completely out of control there's very little I can-"

"_You don't understand_!" Scar suddenly cried, causing the king to step back in surprise. He was worried now. Scar, usually so stoic and indifferent to everything, looked positively terrified. He peered into his brother's face.

"What's wrong, brother? Tell me."

Scar was breathing so heavily he could barely speak anymore. With all the effort he could muster, he choked out the last three words, causing the whole world to stand still for Mufasa.

"_Simba's down there."_

With that, without even so much as saying anything, Mufasa took off towards the gorge. For all he knew, he could have been flying, but for all he did, he knew that he needed to get there. Now.

"Zazu!" he finally shouted, not making any effort to try to sound less terrified than he was, "fly ahead! Find him!"

Zazu shot off towards the gorge ahead of him, wings flapping furiously, matching the equally frantic pace of Mufasa's paws as they pounded against the ground beneath them.

He reached the gorge in record time, skidding down a steep slope and landing on a rock that jutted from the walls of the ravine. The scene before him could not have been any more desperate had it tried: hundreds of panicked and out of control wildebeests were flooding past him, kicking dust into the air as they went, their cries echoing all around. Simba was nowhere to be seen.

"SIMBA!" Mufasa screamed above the chaos, "SIMBA!"

He scanned the gully below him over and over, and still couldn't find him. He could feel the panic and overwhelming fear in him rising, not even noticing Scar eventually catching up to him.

"I don't see him!" Mufasa almost wailed, "Oh, gods, I can't find him!"

Zazu was gone, too. The thick cloud of dust was only getting thicker, reducing visibility significantly. In a mad panic, Mufasa began to run alongside the flow of wildebeests, Scar hot on his heels.

"It's no good, Mufasa!" his brother called from behind him, "you'll never see him! There's just too much _dust_!"

"_I can't afford to think like that_!" Mufasa bellowed back at him, turning his head slightly as he did so. When he fully turned forward once more, he snarled in shock as something hit him in the face. Shaking his head to clear the sudden dizziness that had taken it over, he saw Zazu in front of him, hovering just ahead, absolutely bedraggled looking from his frantic flight through the cloud. There was no time for Mufasa to speak.

"There!" he cried, "over there! On that tree!"

Mufasa hurriedly followed to where he was pointing. Sure enough, there was Simba, dangling above certain doom as the deadly flood of unrelenting hooves rushed past below him. The half-rotten limb swayed as they galloped by, and the tiny cub clutching to it was clearly struggling to hold on.

"Oh, dear gods," Mufasa whispered under his breath, "Hang on, Simba! I'm coming!"

Then, before either Zazu or Scar could say anything to stop him, he leapt from the plateau and into the stampede, sprinting flat-out towards his son.

Standing on the platform was nothing compared to being in the thrall of the stampede itself. Down here, the dust was flying from the ground and continuing to swirl around due to the mass movement taking place on the floor of the gorge. The great King screwed up his eyes and barrelled forwards towards the limb that Simba clung to. On the approach, he tried to move closer towards the far side of the gulch, so as to run directly underneath the tree and grab the cub as he passed, but trying to run forwards whilst inching sideways in the middle of this throng was nearly impossible. Every second he was inches away from being gored or sliced by the hundreds of horns rushing alongside him, moving closer to them only tempted fate. There was only one thing for it.

He surged forwards, streaking past Simba, before expertly sliding on his belly across the path of the oncoming wildebeest and doing an about face. This was even scarier: sprinting in the opposite direction of the frightened herd made the threat of a head on collision all the more likely, and there was no doubt as to who would come out of such an event worse-off

He was right: with little warning, a bull appeared seemingly from nowhere, crashing into Mufasa and sending him flying backwards unceremoniously. Sprawling across the ground, Mufasa cried out in a mixture of shock and pain, as he felt the beast's hooves pummelling into him as he ploughed straight over him in a desperate bid to carry on with the others.

Shaking the blood out of his eyes, Mufasa looked up just in time to see the limb that had allowed his son to survive in the stampede this long finally give way. Another wildebeest had collided with it, causing an ear-splitting crack, as the branch shattered into a hundred tiny splinters. Simba was flung into the air by the momentum of it all, screaming in horror as he tumbled down, closer and closer to the ground where he would surely be trampled to death…

For Mufasa, time slowed to a crawl. His cat-like reflexes kicked into gear as in one fluid movement he was on his feet, kicking off the floor and leaping into the air. Right on cue, he caught the soaring cub in his mouth and landed, light as a feather, back amongst the stampede. It was almost over now; he just needed to get back to the platform.

With heightened agility, given the circumstances, he weaved in and out of the panicked animals, his goal in sight, Simba held securely in his mouth. A small portion of the fear and dread within him had loosened, but the rest stuck fast. He would only allow himself to relax once they were out of the gorge, for any lull in concentration now could have deadly consequences.

Ironically, as this thought came to him, he felt a sharp, stabbing pain tear through his side, eliciting a road of agony from him. He just about heard Simba squeals as he was flung away from him into the forest of pounding hooves. Mufasa, blood seeping from the wound left by a wildebeest that had tossed its head in an effort to throw him out of the way, scrambled to his feet and leaped in the direction of Simba's cries for help. Standing still in this fray would be a suicide attempt.

He spotted Simba not too far away, desperately dancing in and out of the wildebeest limbs descending from the sky all around him. At any moment one could strike him, and this thought alone was enough to make the fur along the king's spine stand up even more. Seizing his opportunity, Mufasa leaped towards his son, throwing himself over him to shield his tiny body from an oncoming bull. Mufasa's bulk suddenly in front of it threw the wildebeest's concentration: with no time to dodge the new obstacle, it collided with them and tripped, skidding across the ground. Its dying scream descended upon Mufasa's ears as its body was pierced by hundreds of hooves mowing straight over it. Trying with all his might to ignore it, he hurriedly picked Simba up and hauled him towards the rocky wall, their escape within sight.

Mufasa kicked off the ground once more, latching on to a low platform and setting Simba down, out of harm's way. Still clinging precariously to the ledge, he breathed a sigh of relief, and opened his mouth to speak.

"Simba…" he began.

Before there was any chance for him to continue, he was suddenly ripped away from the ledge as another beast smashed into him. Unprepared for the collision, he rolled away beneath the stampede, wincing and roaring from the pain of the hooves striking him. Blood was flowing from all manner of wounds now, and the ever-flying dust was sticking to him. He would have been completely unrecognisable as the King of the Pride Lands to anyone who saw him.

Completely disorientated now, he stumbled to his feet, with difficulty as the wildebeests streaking past buffeted him. In a last ditch attempt for life, he leaped out of the stampede and, with all the strength left within him, dug his claws into the rock face. With nowhere else to go, he started to climb, higher and higher, his muscles burning with every small movement. His limbs ached, having been running for so long now, and the heat was so intense that the blood was mixing with the sweat that covered his body.

_Oh, gods, I need WATER._

With one last desperate lift of his paw, he was suddenly aware of his brother's face appearing from the shroud, and he breathed a sigh of relief to see him. At last, he was safe!

"Scar!" he cried, "brother! Help me!"

He tried to scramble closer to him, but his hind legs just scraped across the rock without being able to grip it. Scar didn't move, either. He just continued to stare down at Mufasa, his usual apathetic facial expression returned.

"Scar?" Mufasa called again, confused, "what are you waiting for? Help me up!"

Still, Scar didn't move, either. The darkness of his expression was making Mufasa extremely uneasy.

And then, in one fluid movement, Scar's claws slammed down upon Mufasa's paws. Half from shock, half from pain, Mufasa let go of the rock, crying out from the pain of it all, and dangled from the face of the cliff, the ever-flowing stampede still rushing past below him.

Scar pulled his brother closer, his expression darkening even more. Mufasa's eyes widened in shock as a sneer slowly spread its way across his face, and he uttered four words, soft as whispers, holding a deadly significance.

"_Long live the King!"_

With that, Scar threw his paws out, splaying them, and Mufasa was flung back. Down he tumbled, faster and faster, his ears roaring, his mouth screaming, the air rushing past him, the screeching thoughts in his brain becoming louder and louder and louder until…

The almighty smash of his impact never came. The next thing he knew, his eyes were screwed shut, and he was lying on a hard surface. The pain in his limbs and his back was gone. He couldn't feel the stinging of the dust upon his cuts, and the roar of the stampeding wildebeests was gone. He felt at peace, light as a feather, ready to spend the rest of time in this dream like state.

"_Mufasa…"_

At the sound of his name, he let his eyes slowly open. Serenely, he took in the scene around him. He was still in the gorge, yes, but it was immediately apparent that he wasn't alone. Rolling onto his stomach, he looked around him to try and ascertain as to where the voice had come from.

When he spotted the figure behind him, he cried out loud, instantly knowing who it was. His father stood before him, just as proud and serious-looking and regal as Mufasa remembered him. Still, like a cub that hadn't grown into his paws yet, he tried to stumble to his feet and ended up collapsed in front of the great King Ahadi, who had gone to join the pride in the stars many moons ago. Under his gaze, Mufasa felt scrutinised, just like it had always felt. This was far too real.

"Rise, my son," the oh-so-familiar voice boomed, its commanding tone just so.

Mufasa looked up at him, his body racked by a terrible shaking, his voice stuttering as he attempted speech.

"B-but… I don't understand…"

He looked around him, and gasped in shock. From what he could tell, his own battered, mangled corpse lay in front of him. He turned back to his father.

"Am I – … I'm…?"

"Yes, son," came the reply, somewhat sad sounding, "you died."

Still confused, bewildered and overwhelmed, Mufasa once again failed to regain control of his tongue.

"Scar?" he stammered, "Scar killed me? But… wh-why?"

Ahadi looked to the ground, sadly, and nodded.

"A terrible hatred took him over," he said, uncharacteristically softly, "there was nothing the spirits could do for him. It was stuck there."

Mufasa looked from his father to the top of the canyon to his dead body and back again. This had to all be some sort of strange dream. There was no other explanation. And yet, it couldn't be. The feelings he felt in the presence of this spirit lion were exactly the same as those he had felt so long ago when his father had been alive. It had to be him, right here, right now.

"So… when you used to tell me that when a great king died, his successor came to guide him into the stars… that's now?"

Ahadi nodded back, again. He was almost smiling, yet at the same time a terrible sadness seemed to have taken him over, too.

"I only wish I didn't have to be doing it this soon."

There was something about him that Mufasa couldn't stop staring at. His father was young and strong again, not elderly and weak as he had been just before he died. His mane was sleek and his eyes were bright, as if his every imperfection had been stripped away during his passage into the afterlife. The battle-scars he had procured during his life were gone too. He was almost like a blank canvas.

As he was drinking in this perfected image of the lion before him, a sudden thought came sprinting into his mind.

"… where is Simba?"

Ahadi turned his head to the left, gazing down the canyon. A distant echo could be heard.

"_Dad! Dad! Where are you?!"_

Mufasa stared as the cub approached, sighing in relief that he was unharmed. However, this release was rapidly replaced by confusion as Simba rushed past him.

"Simba?" Mufasa said, following him, "I'm right here. Where are you going? Can't you see me?"

"He can't, Mufasa," he said quietly, "no one can. They can't see me either."

Mufasa wasn't paying him any attention. He was too busy calling out to the son who couldn't hear him.

"Simba! It's okay! I'm here!" He reached out a paw to try and pull him closer, but where he should have touched him; he just felt nothingness, his extended leg not connecting with anything.

"_No…" _Mufasa whispered, "no! NO!"

Simba turned and ran away from the dead body he had been poring over. His cries for help into the silence were more than Mufasa could bear. Great tears welled in his eyes and spilled over. He whirled around to face his father.

"Why can't I touch him?" he whimpered, "Why can't he hear me? He needs me!"

"You're dead, Mufasa," Ahadi replied, "we're both spirits. No one will be able to hear you."

"But, why? No! That's not-"

He gasped, before the sound rapidly switched to a growl, rumbling deep in his throat. Simba lay slumped in defeat by his father's corpse, while, in the distance, his dark form visible through the cloud of smoke, Scar was on the approach.

"I'll kill him," Mufasa whispered, "I'll kill him so help me I'll-!"

"You'll do nothing of the sort," Ahadi said behind him, "you can't. You left that world in death, there's no going back."

Not heeding his father's words for a second time, Mufasa roared, and leaped at Scar, who was now talking to Simba, pulling him in close in false comfort. He soared straight through him, landing roughly on the ground, grunting in frustration.

"_Get away from him!" _

Roaring and snarling, he tried time and time again to knock his brother down, with the same failed result each time. Ahadi merely sat and observed him the whole time, while the scene rapidly changed around them. Simba turned and ran from where they all stood, only looking back once. Mufasa stopped roaring long enough for them to hear Scar utter another couple of terrible words.

"_Kill him." _

"_NO!" _

Once more, in defeat, Mufasa hit the ground, weeping freely, not caring who could and who couldn't see him. Through the blur of his tears he saw the three hyenas leaping away, hot on Simba's heels.

"No," he moaned, "no, no, No! Why did this have to happen?"

He was dully aware of Ahadi approaching him.

"I know it's hard to accept," he said, "but you're not the only one to take it this way. I didn't take it well at all."

"But Simba _needs _me! And I can't help him! And what about the pride and-"

Another agonising ripple coursed through his body.

"Oh, my gods, _Sarabi."_

In desperation he looked around him, his breathing speeding up.

"I've got to go back!" he cried, "I've got to get to them."

He whirled around to face his father once more.

"You've got to help me!" he begged, "change me back! Do something! Please!"

He looked him deep in the eyes.

"_Help me!" _

Ahadi shook his head.

"There's nothing I can do. You're already gone, there is no going back."

Fresh tears began to flow down Mufasa's face, in defeat he slid to the floor again.

"You aren't completely powerless, Mufasa."

His son looked up at him, confused.

"Wh-what do you mean?"

"You can't speak with them, you can't touch them, but that doesn't mean you can't still _be _withthem."

"But I have to- I need to-"

"It's hard, I know, but someday you'll be together again."

He smiled slightly.

"For me, that's right now."

Mufasa just continued to stare at him, like he had for the entire encounter. His pained and panicked expression didn't falter. Ahadi stepped closer to him.

"Do you remember running to that graveyard to find Simba, Mufasa? Do you remember how panicked you felt, but then everything was ok in the end?"

Mufasa merely nodded.

"I do, too. I was running alongside you."

The lion on the ground suddenly was staring up at him, looking as though he had just been struck by the hand of realisation.

"The night before you ascended the throne, and you were terrified about it, I was sitting in that cave with you. Every time an intruder breached the border I ran to the battle with you. I was always there."

He stopped to let this sink in with his son. He was now looking down at the floor, deep in thought.

"You said so yourself, "just remember the great kings will always be there to guide you.""

A new sense of understanding seemed to have come over Mufasa.

"I did say that, didn't I? And you told it to me first."

Ahadi nodded.

"…It's great to finally be able to talk to you again."

Mufasa looked up, his expression pensive.

"It feels great to see you again."

They both smiled, before the younger of the two stood up, and, hurrying over rubbed his face into his father's mane, something he hadn't been able to do for a long time.

"When Simba's time comes you can go to meet him, but until then you can watch over him along with the rest of us."

Mufasa nodded, accepting the situation for what it was. It was better than nothing.

"Good, then. Let's go."

Ahadi led the way into a suddenly present white light, seemingly unending before them.

"You're really going to love it up here."

**Thanks for reading! Hope you like :D**

**If you have time, go check out my other One Shot from this week, "Through Heavens Eyes". It only got one review, which made me sad since it took forever to write. I'm not 100% happy with it but I still think its good overall. **

**Thanks a bunch – NiñaRoja out**


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